I believe I suffer from Tranformerholicolism. It's in the dictionary, or at least it should be. I always try and convince myself that I am only a casual transformers fan. It's almost like when alcoholics say that they don't have a drinking problem yet they constantly drink. Supposedly I'm only a casual fan but yet my collecting diet consists of many transformable goods. Also, Is it possible to be a casual fan when you plop down $250 on a preorder for a yet unknown Masterpiece Transformers figure? Well, that's what I did. I didn't even know who MP-10 was going to be when I placed the preorder. When word got out that it was another Convoy/Optimus Prime that was smaller with much less diecast, I was ready to cancel. Thank goodness I didn't.

I usually like to start off with the box, but due to my impatience to open up my figures when I review them, I end up shooting the boxes last. By the time this is live on this site, I will be in a far away land on vacation and wouldn't you know it, I never got to shoot the box. It will be updated upon my return to the US of A.

This is the MP-10 Convoy otherwise known as Optimus Prime. Once you pop him out, you get one of the most beautiful renditions of Optimus Prime. I will admit I had a knot in my throat because I was wondering where my money went. This guy is almost entirely plastic. Diecast is minimal and only for structural purposes unlike the MP-01 which was a diecast showoff.

The longer I spent with it, the better I felt about the purchase. This is truly one of the most impressive Prime's I've ever had the pleasure of handling. Sure, it's smaller than the impressive MP-01, but bigger isn't always better. His fingers are articulated although his index finger is the only independent one. The thumb is fixed and the other three fingers are molded together. Care must be taken when extending his index finger. Go too far and it pops off. Luckily, it is easily reattached if you are lucky enough to find it in your shag rug.

This Prime is much more articulated than the tall heavy MP-01 and believe me, this figure is not even breaking a small sweat in this conservative pose.

Spin him around and check this out, his blaster is concealed in his backpack. How is this you ask? The blaster folds neatly into this back compartment. To unfold it, just press a little grey button and it unfolds using spring-action!

You'll be happy to know the Energy Axe is included. To use it, you simply make sure that Optimus Prime's hand is in the fist position. Then you align the axe over the fist (I obviously didn't). The axe is made of a soft rubbery PVC material

One of my favorite features on the MP Primes is the Matrix compartment. Not only does this figure have a compartment for the Matrix, but the Matrix itself is chromed diecast. Really nice. The center round piece is painted a candy colored copper-orange which seems to chip easily or is sloppily painted.

While it's obviously smaller than the MP-01's Matrix, it does scale up nicely in his hand like seen in the movie.

Tired of seeing this pose yet? It's everywhere. It is nice to know they can shake hands though.

As most of us already know, Optimus Prime does have an alternate mode which is a truck. The transformation on this figure is light years ahead of the G1. It even makes the MP-01 look simple. The transformation is more involved but its an entertaining process. The engineering is very well done. A lot of the truck bits are hidden in his chest and replace the outer bits. This allows Prime to look accurate in both modes. Usually transformations like this require parts-swapping on other figures out there, but Takara worked overtime to make this work well.The end result is a nicely sized truck mode. Very subtle and understated.

I had mentioned that I had a knot in my throat and was left wondering where my money went. The truck mode made the knot bigger because the size to price ratio was off. Then I remembered...oh yeah, there's more stuff in the box! Once I had the trailer in hand, the price made a bit more sense. The trailer definitely adds more fun to the set. It mounts easily to Optimus Prime. It's actually quite impressive.

Some people complained about the location of the Autobot logo, but depending on what you reference it to, it's accurate. The logo itself is raised and painted.

When not hitched up to prime, you can pull out the support jacks up front and the support arms out to the sides. The arms on the side extend and retract when swung in and out. It adds to the level of detail. The finish on the arms is a matte black with small metallic flakes.

The trailer adds so much to this alternate mode because you can actually store deluxe size figures out back. Here you'll see Wheeljack (Not included) coming out to play.

Although Wheeljack is not included, Roller is. Notice the intricate detailing of the interior of the trailer. Oh, and who's that in the driver's seat?

His name would be Spike Witwicky.

Yes oh yes, an included Spike figure. This set just keeps getting better and better. He's rather plain and generic without any detailing, but he is articulated in the shoulders, hips and knees.

When I take silly pictures, you know I'm having fun.

Here is the back of roller with clear-red light detail. You want to engage Roller in battle? You can attach Prime's blaster out back. Just open the rear hatch and attach the gun. Sweet.

Want to know where Optimus Prime's trailer goes when it disappears? I like to think Roller takes the responsibilty. Again, open the hatch to reveal a hitch. This is too cool.

You are wrong if you think this is the end of the fun. The trailer opens up of course to reveal an extendable driver's seat and articulated repair arm.

The driver's seat is of course for our little pal Spike.

You can leave it as is, or close the trailer up around it and have him hanging out top to help.

Spike also has the option of two other seating areas.

The fun doesn't stop there folks, you can stand the trailer upright to create a repair bay. Prime rests up nicely against it when he is ready to be freshened up. Notice that the weapons can be fixed to each side of the trailer when not in use.

The claw arm can come down to do the necessary repairs.

Even Spike can join in to help.

If you need to dig in deeper for repairs, you can always open up Optimus Prime's chest and make things a bit more interesting.

And yes, Spike can help.

The big question is this. Is this release worth $250+ dollars? Let's assume the figure alone is in the typical $70 range. That makes the trailer a very expensive accessory. That being said, casual fans may look it over and think of what else they can buy for this price. Chogokin fans will balk at the price because this price can buy some high end heavy gokins. Transformers fans are probably too poor from buying up every other figure they can find so they will wait for a US release or sale. Hardcore Transformer fans will buy it no matter what. For me? The price tag hurt, but after a couple of weeks of ownership, the pain has gone away and I am comfortable with my purchase. I am very happy with my new Optimus Prime. I would gladly buy it all over again. If you don't care for the trailer and don't want to spend loads of your hard earned dough, just save up for the inevitable $60-$70 Hasbro release. If you must have the trailer, prepare for the hurt.

great review...but for me...I did per-ordered and canceled...and after your your review thank god i did...too many convoy and i am so disappointed how only mp-01 is high die-cast content....like you said most die-cast from this line is just structural. I will dodge masterpiece releases because too me all you get is huge $$ for little. As i said great review and wonderfully done, just after so much die-cast in Mp-01...every release since then has been masterpiece in money only to me. The only Masterpiece I will own will be.from Wal-mart clearance for under 40 bucks..

An amazing review for the most iconic Transformer in existence. I thought i might add a little something though, as you mentioned the articulation has improved a great deal, an added gimmick i recently discovered is that you can extend his feet inward. In other words, Optimus' feet slide out of place for some added articulation, extending the range he can spread his legs apart when standing. This was an amazing move and i found you can pull off some very dynamic poses with this added move. give it a try.

The presence of the MP-01 figure is far more grand & fitting of an Optimus Prime figure. Can't see any reason to shell out the cash on this one if you've already got the MP-01.

Having said that though, if your buying your first 'high-end' Optimus, this one is hard to beat thanks to all the little accessories & improved engineering over MP-01. But if like me, you really only buy these toys so you can view them behind glass & only occasionally pull them out for a photo shoot etc, stick with the MP-01, it's way more impressive when it's just standing there.

I've always wanted an Optimus figure to add to my collection, and I've always been at ends about MP-01. This year i was fortunate enough to attend a comic-con convention where i happened to stumble upon a booth that was selling MP-01. It's a nice looking figure but just didn't appeal to me, die cast is great and all but it felt a little bulky. Personally, having the right articulation is a priority for me, its what brings my figures alive. When i saw the pictures of MP-10 all over the net i was instantly sold !! Now i find myself changing his pose once every few days, each one more admired than the last.

Thank you for the great review. This is one impressive figure, a lot more so than I originally thought. I too was put off by the size and the cost. Right now on my shelf I have my MP-1 Prime next to my MP Megatron and they are in perfect scale. I also have my MP Rodimus next to my re-issue Takara purple Galvatron, which although smaller than Prime and Megatron, are in perfect scale with each other. I sorta like have the original leaders standing taller than their replacements :)

Unless they make a smaller Megatron in scale with this Prime, I will have to hold off on this figure.

I might be skeptical if I owned any version of the masterpeice Optimus, but I never did break down and buy one. With each release I find myself glad that I did not; especially now! The pricetag is high...but honestly, it looks like there's a lot of display and play value for the money. The trailer has EVERY little thing that I loved about the original, but with a fully articulated Prime to go with it. As it is stated; there will probably be a US version....but I'm afraid if it doesn't have the trailer, I'm just not as interested. The trailer is a fantastic addition!

I have to ask, does the head look as disproportionately small in person as it does in photographs? It's the only thing really turning me off of this figure. You make it look really good in your pictures though so maybe it's a matter of perspective.

Now to wait for the inevitable Ultra Magnus/Nemesis Prime/Shattered Glass/Crystal Version/Lucy Draw variants. It's cool that Takara went back and improved the design of the most popular character but how about an actual Ultra Magnus next time? Too bad they're just remaking Starscream though I wouldn't mind a Megatron that doesn't snap in half when you try to transform him.

I haven't ever gotten an MP Optimus/Convoy before, so I am tempted to get this. However, at $250 and a smaller size(I'm guessing about 18 cm or so) I can't justify buying this thing. Besides, as many other people have said, I'd rather wait for an Ultra Magnus release.

Quick picture tip: Try using .png instead of .jpg for pictures with lots of red in them. JPEG compression really makes the color red look weird with lots of artifacts and color bleeding. Really nice review, though! Wishing I had the money for one of these now!

P.S. No missile launchers in the repair bot? No metal plates in the trailer walls for little magnet-footed Diaclone pilots to walk on?

In many cases, it'll actually be the digital camera's sensor or internal color processing (or even the automatic white balancing) that has trouble with bright, vibrant reds. However, if you suspect the file format is part of the cause, you may want to see if your camera can shoot in "raw" format, which you may then have to convert into a regular image file before you edit it.

I do some post processing but my reds look fine in the original picture. It isnt until I upload the pictures that the spots appear. I think the site compresses the files to save space and the compression probably brings out those artifacts. I will try the .png suggestion next time i get something with lots of reds.

I've gone from being a GIANT transformer fan (I own like 250-something TF toys) to basically not caring. Sure part of that may be the quality of the films (allthough I liked them more than most online fans),part of it might be starting a family and having less space,but most of it is HasTak going to the same well so many times.
Nothing against this figure,on its own,it looks great. But how do I justify buying this when I already have at least 12 toys of the same character? Yeah,each one's slightly different,but at the end of the day I own,like I said,at least 12 red and blue toy trucks,from Hotwheels size to huge size,that turn into toy robots with windshield chests. Do I really need one more?
It's not just OP,either,TF is all rehash now. How many Megatrons are there? How many Bumblebees? Soundwaves?
And in all these cases,the iconic versions most fans prefer are still the originals!

Towards the end of my TF collecting,I felt like one of those poor souls collecting Batman TAS figures in the 90's. "Let's see,do I already have Arctic Sky Surf Assault Batman,or was that Beach Party Urban Camo Batman?" "Well,which Batman's your favorite?" "The blue and gray one I bought first,of course."

Why not sell all your G1 rehashes and reinvest in only Transformers that are fresh, new concepts? For instance, Hatchet from the last movie line is one of the most unusual, fascinating Transformers in years - he's a jet that transforms into a four-legged beast with a head coming out of the engine nozzles and a cockpit on its tail. The movie toylines and the general "Transformers" lines that came in between the movies have gotten out a lot of really unique products in the smaller price points, like Ransack the biplane and the whole Real Gear line. Since the end of the Armada/Energon/Cybertron era, the products have diversified a lot and when you set aside the products that are continuing the "Classics" line, I think the post-movie Transformers line franchise is showing more originality in theme and design than it has since the early years of Beast Wars.

The biplane was a little flimsy but I did like it. I'll have to check out Hatchet.
I don't think I'm at the point where I want to sell off anything yet,I just feel like I'm at a point where I should be selective about what I add to the already huge pile.